A little about me

When moving from Southend-On-Sea to study in Brighton in 2005 I had never played a hand of poker in my life. It all started with the casual home game in our halls of residence moving rather quickly onto the local casino for the £5 rebuy tournaments and the occasional shot at the £10 rebuy if the student loan had come through. I quickly developed a good understanding of how to exploit weak opponents and over time i got myself out of debt. I spent the summer of 2006 in canada with my girlfriend Barbara grinding out a job in construction with her uncle while playing live cash at the casino in Niagra. I spent 2 years grinding live poker and taking the occasional shot at bigger buyin tournaments when the festivals came along until i met James Dempsey.

James (MKKMOO/the norse horse) and i became friends and he started to stake me in live tournaments which removed all the pressure as i had no financial liability anymore. We spoke abit about strategy over the next year or so which i had never done with anyone else and i was starting to crush live tournies. I cashed for over £50k in festival events between 2006-2008 and my eyes were open as to how much money there was to be made. I would hang out with James and he would be playing online crushing tournaments for tens of thousands of USD every week so i opted to take a shot at becoming an online grinder thus creating the screen name of Cod Meharly.

The reality of Poker really hit me when i tried to make the transition from live to online. Playing a pure game with no people infront of you is a completely different ball game! I struggled for a year or so losing online but winning live then i started meeting other poker players and interacting. Over 2008 i met a group of guys now named the "shrewdies" (leknave, theclaimer, rookieitb, chiprich, horneris, hitthehole, deucebabydeuce) and we would stay up all hours of the night grinding online and talking poker. This really helped me with understanding the fundamentals of poker and i felt ready for a shot at the wsop in 2009 (see shrewdies thread on blonde poker for a full breakdown).

So after a terrible wsop and a bad run online i have gone back to the drawing board. I made friends with some amazing poker players over this summer (moorman and pab) and they have really helped me with my game. Im on the biggest downswing of my life and i feel asif i started to play badly. Being on the road and continuously moving around has definetly not helped me focus but i am realistic and i know that i have a lot to learn if i wanna crush the biggest and best games out there.

Currently in Toronto with my girlfriend i am heading back to vegas on the 16th of october with tom cunningham and dave jones for the venetian deepstack festival. We are planning on taking just over 2 weeks to drive it stopping off in NewYork, Memphis, Collorado and a few other places. From now until then i will be grinding online and playing live cash games at niagra falls with the focus on really playing my A game. I have improved so much over the past 6 months and i have ran so deep in so many tournaments where the winner is rolling in mad dimes! I heard people complain about running bad for a few months and i never beleived them but i have definetly changed my views on the matter now. A positive attitude, great players around me and an insane work ethic should enable me to reach the top and im gna give it my best shot. I hope a few people enjoy reading about my journey on and off the felt.

Nick